


Friends

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg Lestrade and Sally. Sally finds out Greg's dating, and is nosy. </p><p>Character study: Greg and Sally as a team who trust each other, and a mess of Mycroft through Greg's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends

Lestrade’s out of his comfort zone. Way out of his comfort zone.

Apparently it shows.

“Who’s the lucky lady?” Donovan asks, one evening, as they rip through paperwork together.

Lestrade looks at her, blankly, then manages to track. “Missed the mark, Sally.”

“Who’s the lucky man?” she quips back, thinking it’s no more than a play on words—then gasps and giggles. “Oh, my God! You?”

He rolls his eyes. “Sally…”

“No, no, it’s all right. I just—never thought. This something new, or you been around this block before?”

“Sally…” He buries his face, frantically looking for a way out of this conversation that won’t make him look like a prick, a tit, a twat or a prig. “As your boss…and your friend… Can we not…”

She looks at him reprovingly. “You talked to me about Anderson.”

“I talked to you about avoiding a reprimand for conduct unbecoming.”

She flits her hand, tossing away the implication. “Come on, guv. This a whole new adventure in sexual identity or a return to old ways and customs?”

He sighs. “You want my Kinsey score?”

“Kinsey score, sexual CV, phone numbers of contacts and references.” She chuckles as he harrumphs and googles his eyes at her in amused frustration. “Hey, detective, me. What can I say? You trained me well. Nosy: it’s what we do.”

“Yeah. All right. Kinsey probably centering around a three: dead mid-range. By habit I lean straight—it’s just easier and you meet more interested women than men: a numbers game. Been around the block. Not often. Not since before I got married.”

She considers and nods. “Yeah. Ok. Makes sense. Fits the Greg Lestrade I know—I can see it.” She smiles at him, a bit shyly. “Kinsey two, myself, s’near as I can guess. But took a tour of my own territory once in uni. Didn’t stick, for all I spent a year thinking it would and telling anyone who’d listen I was a total dyke.”

“You lesbian till graduation, you!”

“Guilty. Thought it was the real thing at the time, though.” She shrugs. “Pisses me off, you know. Like if I tried it and liked it, I’m guilty of selling out if it doesn’t stick.”

“Kind of hard on the ones who can’t swing back and forth,” Lestrade points out. “We middle-Kinseys screw the curve for the zeroes and sixes.”

She sniffs. “Tough. Got to try first, if you’re going to figure it out.” She finishes up a file and closes it with a peevish snap. Then she looks at him, eyes curious. “He nice? Your guy?”

He shivers. “Probably the wrong term. He’s…” He thinks about it, trying to find some way of describing Mycroft without giving it all away. It’s not easy. “You know those gorgeous Japanese samurai swords?”

“Katana?”

“Yeah. The kind you can drop a silk handkerchief on the blade edge and it splits in two just from its own weight? Fancy steel, jade guard, keep it in its own display rack, pass it down over generations? That kind of thing?”

She whistles. “Oi! Watch it! Boss—you may not know it, but I kind of like you. Not sure I like you dating a Japanese sword. Sounds dangerous.”

He frowns. “He is dangerous. But…Ok. Now this is where you’ve really got to concentrate. You know how some swords are supposed to have their own spirit, kind of? Like they’re a person as well as a sword?”

“You been reading fantasy novels again?”

“The word isn’t ‘again,’ Sally, it’s ‘still.’ Look, do you get the idea?”

“Yeah, yeah. Looks like a sword, but in truth it’s the avatar of the Great God Googleglop. Whatever. Where’s this going?”

“Yeah. Well. My Japanese sword’s possessed by the spirit of a shy boy who blushes and worries about his kid brother. If he were an accountant, no one would think twice. I keep almost getting him a kitten. Stop laughing, Sally…no, I mean it. Ok. Ok. I know even you’ve read Pratchett. Everyone’s read Pratchett, yeah?”

“Yeah. Ok. Everyone’s read Pratchett.”

“So my guy: I can imagine him having a bit of a chat with Death over their take-out curry, and my guy keeping sugar cubes in his pocket to feed to Death’s horse Binky.  And the two of them talking about how confusing people are, and why they never seem to get the point of holiday greeting cards.”

Sally looks at him in complete disbelief. “This is so not you, guv. I mean, come on. I was figuring a great guy with a thing for footie and a silver tongue, yeah? A bloke. A good-time guy. Bit of a laugh. You’re due for a bit of fun, yeah? Now you tell me you’re hooked on some weird cross between a serial killer and a library nerd? Next you’ll tell me he wears specs and raises orchids.”

“No specs. No orchids…though…” He stops, pondering. He has no idea what Mycroft would be, taken away from the city and the endless rush of governmental crises. He knows Mycroft has a place in the country he’s not seen yet. He know Mycroft loves it, much as he loves his quiet Diogenes Club. Lestrade finds himself wondering if, away from London, Mycroft isn’t all soft tweeds and velvet-nosed horses and worry about powdery mildew in his rose garden. Or would Mycroft raise marrows, like Poirot? Or those orchids Sally mentioned, like Nero Wolfe?

He suddenly wants to know. He’s been in the city most of his life, now, but he remembers green. When life pulls him away from London and he sucks in fresh air, he finds himself enjoying it. He just forgets between times. Now he wants to know Mycroft in the country: pottering around his estate, taking part in village life. Mycroft’s so very, very English—it astounds Greg to realize he’s only just now asked himself who Mycroft is when he’s not his City-self.

He can imagine Mycroft, hands properly tucked into canvas garden gloves, grubbing away in a perennial bed, setting out bulbs and holding conversations with visiting moggies. Hell, he can imagine Mycroft sparkling at local events, allowing himself to be conned into judging pots of jam and Bakewell tarts. He can see Mycroft grinning and chatting merrily away, hauling out his diplomatic charm.

He can just as easily see him standing on a hill, in a spinney, with a high wind mounting, being all broody and Heathcliffy and entirely too despondent to be allowed on his own.

Which Mycroft is the country Mycroft? Neither? Both? All and then some?

“Guv?”

He blinks. “Oh. Sorry. Mind wandered.”

“I”ll say.” She grins. “You’re crazy about him, then?”

He shrugs, feeling a blush mount. “A bit, yeah.”

“He good to you?” She frowns, fiercely. “He better be. You get enough grief already. He gives you any trouble, you tell me, I’ll deck him.”

He laughs, amused that tiny Sally, fifteen years his junior and half his weight, is offering the classic bloke-ish brother’s fierce determination to defend a little sister. “I don’t think you’ll need to. But thanks, Sal.”

She’s not going to let it go. “But is he good to you?”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “He’d dress me in Savile Row bespoke if I wanted it—and he ignores my grotty wardrobe because I don’t want it. Puts up with my hours. Understands ‘em—he’s got a job that makes demands, too.” He considers what else to tell her. He wants to say, “He smiles when he sees me, and it lights up his face.” He wants to say, “We talk sometimes, in the middle of the night, and we get so interested we forget to fuck.” He wants to say, “He makes me look forward to weekends again.” After awhile he says, “He’s a total mother-hen. Tries to take care of me, right? And when I try to take care of him he blushes and flusters and falls apart and doesn’t know what to do about it. And then he sort of hangs on tight and lets me take care of him anyway. It’s…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s just been a long time since I took care of anyone and had them blush and come apart. You know? Most of the time it’s just what people expect. Myc… My… My guy. He says ‘thank you,’ and every damned time he sounds like a kid who got a pony for Christmas and can’t quite believe it’s not going to disappear. Not needy. Not so screwed up he won’t accept it. It’s…nice. It’s really nice, y’know?” He sighs, then, happily. “Really nice.”

Sally studies him, dark eyes serious. Then she smiles. “Yeah. I hear you. I’m glad, guv. You deserve it.” She slaps the final file shut and stands, stretching. “God. That’s it for me, tonight. Looks like we got through the lot of ‘em, though. Me for bed.”

“Me, too,” he says, rising and fetching his overcoat from his own office. “Lift home?”

“No need,” she says. “Think I’ll stop for take-out. I could murder a good vindaloo.” She slips into her jacket and starts for the door, purse tossed over one shoulder. Just as she reaches the exit, she turns. “Guv?”

“Yeah?”

“He sounds like a good guy. But he’s not the only one who notices when you take care of us. You’re…Hell. We may not agree all the time. But you’re good, yeah? The best. Ok? We… I… Yeah. I know it.”

Then she’s gone, flitting out before her own embarrassment can overwhelm her.

Greg finds himself smiling. He and Sally—they had a hell of a time after Sherlock jumped. It wasn’t easy, and she still hates “the Freak.” These days, though, he understands a bit better. If he ever wants Sherlock beaten up on a dark night in a narrow alley, Sally will do it for him without so much as a question asked. She takes care of her own, does Sally—and Greg’s finally figured out that in her peculiar, mouthy way, she’s decided Greg Lestrade is hers: her guv. She’s not letting any Freak in the universe hurt her guv.

Which means it’s probably just as well she doesn’t know who Mycroft is. All he needs is Sally preparing to defend him against the British Government—or as Sally would probably put it, the British Freakin’ Government.

But, still, it’s nice to know she cares.


End file.
